thoughts (and links) of a retired "social scientist" as he tries to make sense of the world.....

what you get here

This is not a blog which expresses instant opinions on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers as jumping-off points for some reflections about our social endeavours.

So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!

Sunday, November 30, 2014

I have been viewing, for the first time, the first part of the
2011 Scandinavian television seriesThe
Bridge– which follows a Danish policeman and a Swedish
policewoman as they criss-cross the 8 kilometreOresund Bridge(which links Copenhagen and Malmo) in the search of a
killer mastermind.

The townscapes are stunning; but the characters and societies
presented positively dystopian – and have you wondering whether Denmark (where
I lived for a year - in 1990) is actually worth getting to!!

What,
the journalist asks, is the appeal of shows such as The Bridge?"We
are caught up in the darkness, the evil and the misery – we just do those
best." Even though Bodnia, 48, is one of the most genial interviewees I've
encountered, as he sets out this theory he sounds like a cross between
Kierkegaard and Ingmar Bergman.But
surely you can't be right about that. Isn't Denmark regularly voted the
happiest country in Europe?"It
is, but you wouldn't guess that from our film or TV."True
– Danish film has been not just one of the most engrossing national
cinemas, but unremittingly, cherishably bleak. And Bodnia in his early days as
an actor was part of this Nordic noir movement: "I was always good at
playing evil……..- The Swedes got there first – their dramas were always the
darkest and most upsetting, and we used to love them when I was growing up in
Denmark. Now us Danes have caught up."

The
popularity of recent Danish and Swedish crime films, including the adaptations
of Larsson's Millennium trilogy, can possibly be traced back to Ingmar
Bergman's 1962 film Winter Light, which dramatised the Swede's existential
crisis…………..

The
reason the series been so compelling is not so much to do with the whodunit,
but rather the relationship between the 2 detectives. Yes there have been odd
couples in crime dramas before (Morse and Lewis, Holmes and Watson, Clouseau
and Cato, not to mention Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in HBO's
marvellous new series True Detective), but none so fruitful as these two. Norén is a cop with Asperger's (even though that word never appears in
the script) and so emotes very little, but solves crimes with devastating
deductive skills. She takes the inversion of gender roles one step further than
Sarah Lund: sure, she effectively plays the traditional male role (though she's
much more rule-bound than Lund) and is equally affectless, but she confers on
her male co-worker the traditional female attributes seen in detective dramas.

Readers know that, for the past 24
years, I’ve been involved in efforts to strengthen the effectiveness of various
state institutions in such countries as Azerbaijan, Bulgaria (where I am now),
Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Romania and Uzbekistan. I’m trying at the moment to edit a
collection of my musings over the past 5 years about this work – to which I’ve
given the tentative title of “Getting to Denmark” which is the rather ironic phrase
used in the last couple of decades to refer to one of the basic puzzles of
development – how to create stable, peaceful, prosperous, inclusive, and honest
societies (like Denmark).

We owe the phrase to Francis Fukuyama
- of "End of History" and The Origins of Political Orderfame – although the issue is one to
which thousands of experts have bent their minds and careers for more than half
a century.

Fukuyama’s
small 2004 book “State-Building:
Governance and World Order in the 21st Century” appeared at the end of a
decade which had seen organisations such as The World Bank lead the charge
against the very notion of the State. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989,
after all, had confirmed the anti-state, pro-greed philosophy which had begun
to rule Britain and American during the Reagan and Thatcher years and became
enshrined in the global ideology which has ruled us since - of ruthlessly
transferring state assets to the private domain.

Fukuyama’s
focus on how state capacity could be strengthened went, therefore, against the
grain of a lot of thinking – although his main interest was trying to
understand what makes some states successful and others fail? To what extent,
he was asking, can we transfer our knowledge about what works in one state to
another?

We know what ‘Denmark’
looks like, and something about how the actual Den­mark came into being
historically.

But to what extent is that
knowledge transferable to countries as far away historically and culturally
from Den­mark as Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania?”

To be honest, his question didn’t
mention Bulgaria and Romania - but, rather, Somalia. But the question remains
since Bulgaria has made absolutely no progress in the last 25 years. And
Romania only in the last couple of years.

Now,
how can we talk of any improvement when from 9.0 million in 1989 the Bulgarians
today number 7.5 million? An estimated 2.0 to 2.5 million people having left
for good, of which about half represent the quintessential “brain drain”. This
exodus represents in my view a self-inflicted national genocide that the ruling
Nomenklatura is collectively guilty of, and should one day be held accountable
for.How
can we talk of improvement in the economic situation of a country which 20
years after 1989 has a GDP about the same size as it was then? What do we make
of the facts that today:·

- about
one third of the population is living below the poverty line;

·about
one third is just hovering at and above it;

·the
minimum monthly salary is less than 150 euro;

·the
minimum pension is less than 140 euro, and that is just above the (official)
poverty line; you might want to learn that there are about 3 million retired
people in this country – obviously a large portion of them seek additional
source of revenue, such as e.g. in the grey economy; the rest rely on
remittance from abroad, in order not to starve, the alternative being
scavenging the garbage bins;

·the
average monthly salary is less than 350 euro – if we assume that it is
realistic, which it is not, being an official number as well, but it’d be too
long to dwell on here;

·before
1989, all Gypsies were working and all their kids were studying in school;
today most Gypsy parents are unemployed and on state benefits (apart from those
pestering the French, the Italians, Brits etc.) and – protected by idiotic EU
policies – engage in theft, damage of property and all kind of other criminal
activities, begging apart; and the majority of Gypsy kids boycott schooling,
whatsoever;

·before,
education, medicare, social security, recreation were all free or quasi-free of
charge – no more today;

·before,
there was an incredible emphasis on culture; today cultural life in Bulgaria is
a 24 carats example of the perfect disaster;

·before,
there was respect for the traditional values (we are one of the oldest peoples
in the world, respectively claiming one of the richest palette of traditions),
unlike today when the only “value” ruling over here is the very same – first
and only one – that rules America and, after being imported a while ago, in
Western Europe: making money, and fast!

·From
a reasonably well economically developing – albeit under Soviet diktat – and
prospering – no unemployment, no poor, no beggars, every citizen “middle class
member,” no illiteracy, no housing problem, surplus in food, export of
manufactured goods – country then, today’s “democratic” Bulgaria manifests all
the characteristics of a banana republic and keeps sinking in the ranking,
already a Third World member by most measures. What a remarkable
accomplishment, indeed!

In
brief, the “transition” from “Communism” to “Democracy” has brought the
Bulgarian state to its knees and the Bulgarian people have been impoverished as
never before in the country’s millennia old history. Contrary to popular
belief, membership into EU has further contributed to the disaster. I have
explained this in detail in my recent book “Bulgaria, terra europeansis incognita”

No wonder all independent polls today report that in 60-80% of the responses,
within the relevant age groups, people consider having been better off prior to
the arrival of “Democracy!” The masses being nostalgic to “Communism” is the
true achievement of 20+ years under “Democracy” – that is the only real result
which you could, in all fairness, take pride in contributing to, if you wish,
no objections here.

Now,
before you stick to me a label of Commie or another affiliation of that sort,
let me inform you that, in 1982, I defected to Belgium, where I am a
citizen with accomplished career of executive in the microelectronic industry,
recently retired, and my Bulgarian citizenship was restored only in 1994.
Moreover, in 1954 my father, a regional enterprise director in Burgas,
Bulgaria, was sentenced to death by the Communist “People’s Tribunal” for
“economic sabotage of the young socialist republic,” in a mock up of a trial
designed to scare the populace into submission. In 1955, at the age of 35, he
has been executed, leaving behind a son of 7 and a daughter of 2; my mother has
not been given the body, nor have we been shown his grave.

Nobody else, therefore, could be better
qualified as advocate AGAINST Communism. …..but Communism (a single party
Nomenklaturocracy) and Representative Democracy (a multi-party one) are
basically the same animal, the ideology being used essentially as a tool to
justify how all elites stay in power.

My recent post about the result of the Romanian Presidential elections shows that
Romania has at last started to pull itself out of the vicious downward spiral.
Time now to explore the reasons for these divergent paths in neighbouring
countries.

This
2009 paper by Alica Mungiu Pippidi - House of
Cards – building the rule of law in ECE - gives a good insight into the
efforts the EU has made in the past decade to get ex-communist countries to
break away from their gangster cultures. But it doesn’t begin to explain the
different paths these two countries have taken in the past few years…….

Friday, November 28, 2014

I
wonder if it is possible for Europeans (let alone Brits) to begin to put their
head around how countries such as Bulgaria, Poland and Romania have suffered,
in different ways, since 1939??

At
least Poland had its various strands of resistance to be proud of.

And
Romania its various emblems of modernity – visible in its architecture,
inventors, writing or painting (to some of which I paid tribute earlier this
year in my E-book on the country – Mapping
Romania).

Indeed,
as I was drafting this post, I was sent a poem from a poet – Mariana
Marin – reckoned to be one of the best of modern poets and akin, in her
power, to Sylvia Plath.

I hurry toward death

without a purpose,

without a wedding gown,

without a dowry of gold.

Without myself.

Serene and bitter,

I hurry across my native
land

As if tomorrow had already
been.

Needless
to say – despite my love of Romanian poets such as Marin Sorescu and Ana
Blandiana, I had never heard of Marin (who died in 2003).

But
Bulgaria is small – with its back between the Danube and the Balkan/Rhodope
mountain ranges – almost invisible……save, that is for its tourism – at the
Black Sea and skiing resorts……

But
it does have some people who have the skills and energy to project the
country….particularly its artistic community – to whose early
20th century (realist) painters I devoted a small book a couple
of years ago

Earlier
this year year I mentioned Ivan Daraktchiev’s amazing Bulgaria: Terra Europeansis Incognita - 600 pages of superb photographs and challenging text about the history
(ancient and recent) of the country. Ivan doesn’t pull his punches as you will
see from the next post…….

And
yesterday I visited the Neron Gallery whose owner, Rumen Manov, is one of the
best dealers in older Bulgarian paintings - to discover that he has just
published a large 700-page celebration of some 2000 cultural artefacts and
photographs from his own personal collection - in A Fairy Tale about Bulgaria. The
Intro puts it eloquently -

We
the people of this piece stretch of land called Bulgaria are not the end of
Europe, hidden somewhere in the end of the world – we are one of the oldest
European civilizations. In our history there are thousands purposefully
forgotten dates and events. But although quite destroyed, surviving
documents speak eloquently and impartially. We Bulgarians love our ancient
and beautiful land and this book is an attempt to remember the bright, timeless
and eternal values………

I
wanted to do something that is not an encyclopaedia, not an album , not almanac
not historical guide or reference book. It was like a seed in the
ground. When he started to grow this idea in my mind I could see the colours
of the book, as I started to build in time things so hesitated that year - two,
long before I finish the book, I had the idea for it. What I saw was
difficult for me to explain it to people who work with me….. then they
told me that such a thing is not possible. This genre - no, moreover, that
this is a job for an Institute not an individual. But the book is my
witness to many survivors and their fathers, grandfathers -some of them departed
from this world, things scattered in their markets and antiquarians.

I salute such people who, against the odds, are determined to remind locals of their heroes and traditions - however politically incorrect it may be these (stupid) days........

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Just
over 2 months ago, the British political class was panicked into promising
further powers to the Scots – and an apparently independent
and enobled businessman was quickly wheeled into action by the British
Prime Minister to deliver on those pledges -with the help of a committee nominated by the representatives of all five political parties in the Scottish Assembly.

The
timetable was incredibly tight – since there is a General Election next May. Understandably
there have been a lot of cynics….

This
has been quite an autumn – with two of the three places I call home showing
real spirit – and giving a real example to the rest of the world.

So
let’s have an end to people sitting on their hands - and professing cynicism.

What
Romanian and Scottish voters have done in the past 3 months is, hopefully, just
a beginning…… although the various
“electoral springs” of the past 5 years should be a real warning about false
optimism.

I'm reminded of a Russian proverb - Don't fear your enemies or friends! Fear the indifferent! You enemies can only destroy you; your friends can only betray you - it's the indifferent who allow your enemies to destroy you and your friends to betray you!!

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Last
week I acquired some new toys – access to wi-fi here in Sofia and the software
to download films……For someone who has been able these past 25 years to evade
television, this is a dangerous temptation. Oscar Wilde put it nicely for us
Presbyterians when he noted, laconically, that “the best way to resist
temptation is to yield to it”…..

So
I have been binge viewing The
Wire which started in 2002; ran for ten years and is rated as the best (and
most realistic) of television serials. It is a savage portrait of a decaying
American city – Baltimore to be precise – and focuses on drug wars; teamster
corruption; police and education bureaucracies as they try to deal with the new
management techniques; and on the politics of the
local newspaper. So far I’ve viewed some 20 episodes of the first two
series – each of the 5 series is briefly
summarised in this article

I
find the focus on a city – and its various layers – much more gripping than the
conventional one of a murder. The 2 writers are David Simon (who had written a
couple of sociological studies of the situation) and a journalist – so the
series has attracted a lot
of attention from academics and been the subject of glowing reviews here
and here

The
dialogue is rich – but really does need sub-titles to help the viewer make
sense of what the police and politicians – let alone the drug addicts and dealers
– are actually saying.

I
was briefly in Baltimore in 1987 – while a German Marshall Fellow based in
Washington, Pittsburgh and Chicago (I just missed meeting Obama then working
the South Shore as a community activist!) but remember being appalled by the
Baltimore slums which are at the heart of The Wire’s drama.

Such
binge-viewing brings diminishing
returns – and I don’t find it easy to relate to the American and black
context. By way of comparison, I therefore turned to the first couple of
episodes of the 1996 UK television series – Our Friends in the
North - which gives a portrait not just of a city (UK's Newcastle; in the news today for the savage cuts the city faces) but one painted in nine studies over a 32
year period. with an emphasis on the various routes for those wanting to escape from or challenge these urban wastelands and their power systems. This paper offers a good analysis of the seriesSo far – by virtue of the historical depth - I would rate it even higher
than The Wire – and it also gives us an early sighting of Daniel Craig!

Monday, November 24, 2014

This
blog admits to sharing the general cynicism about the political process. All
the more important therefore to recognise when positive efforts show results.
Last week’s astounding victory (by a 10% margin) in the Romanian
Presidential elections of a quiet outsider took everyone by surprise – he was down by the same margin after the
first leg of the elections - but what
happened in the subsequent two weekshas given the country its first real
opportunity in 25 years to change an utterly venal system.

Something
seemed to snap this month for many Romanian citizens. They are used to
smugness, arrogance, lying and deceit from their politicians – although the
past two years have seen an increasing number of those politicians being
actually tried, convicted and locked up. The
Prime Minister (and Presidential candidate) Ponta epitomised their breed –
having been groomed by a previous Prime Minister Adrian Nastase (2000-2004) who became in 2010 or so one
of the first politicians to be fingered by a judiciary which was given its
head by the terms of Romania’s entry to the EU in 2007 – and specifically by
the Cooperation and
Verification Mechanism. At its heart is the National Anti-Corruption Agency
(DNA) whose officials bring the prosecutions which (tenured) judges at last are happy to
uphold. (Not that this stops the Romanian Parliament from trying to give
its deputies special immunity!)

But
blatant attempts
at vote-rigging in the last few weeks proved too much for voters - and seem to have been the spur
for an astonishing jump of 2 million additional
people voting in the second round – more than enough to wipe out the 1.5
million lead which Ponta had in the first round.

Stunning as this victory of decency seems to have been, we need to understand that it has come about only as a result of long, hard and patient work not only of a few Romanian heroes and heroines but of a group whose reputation has become a bit more tarnished these days - namely European technocrats who - as long ago as 2004 - set in place measures to make the Romanian judicial system work. It has been a long struggle which came to a head in 2012.Ponta
had been Prime Minister for only a few weeks when, in summer 2012, he sparked
off a major constitutional crisis which I covered on the blog during July of that year and
summarised in
this post. Tom
Gallagher (who has given us a couple of books about post 1989 Romania - one of which is significantly called "Theft of a Nation") gave the best overview then

A
22-page report from the European commission says the new
government, led by Ponta, has flouted the constitution, threatened judges,
illegally removed officials in an arbitrary manner, and tampered with the
democratic system of checks and balances in order to try to secure the
impeachment of President Traian Basescu……....The
crisis erupted because of the massive over-reaction by the new government of
Victor Ponta to court decisions sentencing political figures,
previously thought to be beyond the reach of the law, to prison terms. Romania
had joined the EU (in 2007) on terms that largely suited a restricted post-communist
elite that benefited from discretionary privatisations of the economy while
pulling the strings in many of the key institutions of state.

A once lively
independent media was mainly captured by the new power magnates. Parliament
devised rules for itself that made challenges from new social forces very hard
and protected its members from prosecution.

Aware
that there was a real danger of Romania becoming a festering political slum
within the EU, Brussels officials showed firmness in one key area, the justice
sector. The Romanian elite agreed, in 2004, to Brussels having oversight of the
justice system even after entry in 2007.The
EU has shown consistency by insisting on a proper separation of powers and the
gradual creation of a justice system not impeded from going after top
politicians, businessmen, civil servants and judges who face credible charges
of corruption.

For
the last eight years there has been a messy power struggle between the old
guard, determined to hold the line against encroachments on their power, and a
small group of reformers in the justice system and the party of Democratic
Liberalism that held office until April. They have mainly been sustained by President
Traian Basescu, a rough-hewn and unconventional former ship captain in the
Romanian merchant navy.

Basescu is
hated by much of the elite because he defected from their ranks and decided to
try and make his legacy the cleaning up of one of the most venal political
systems in Europe. In the process, leading figures in his own party have not
been spared. This led to a string of defections that explain why his most
implacable enemies in the Social Liberal Union were able to return to
government this spring (2012).Their
original intentions had been to wait until parliamentary elections in the
autumn before removing Basescu. They were predicted to produce a big win for
them due to the unpopularity of tough austerity measures
that Basescu had championed in 2010-11.

But
panic set in with the prison sentence for Nastase. Prudence was ditched
entirely when the British journal Nature published an investigation
revealing that 85 pages of the new Prime Minister’s thesis had simply been
copy-pasted from other sources.It
was decided that Basescu would have to be eliminated from the
political game straight away. But that could only be accomplished by neutralising bodies like the Constitutional Court and the
Ombudsman, seizing control of the official gazette so that the government could
publish or suppress whatever laws and rulings it pleased, and removing the
heads of the bicameral parliament in contravention of the rules for this.

President Basescu was
unpopular – being associated with austerity measures and being a hyperactive
loudmouth. More than 80% of those who voted in the 2012 referendum called to impeach him therefore wanted him out (although the President had called
for a boycott) but it failed since only 46% of voters turned out. After this,
things quietened down. A report earlier this year from The Sustainable Government Indicators project gives a detailed analysis of events since 2012.

In
a few days he will stand down – and could well then face prosecution himself by
virtue of his role (as Minister of Transport) in the privatisation of Romania’s
shipping fleet for what some people allege to have been too low a figure. As far as I am aware noone suggests that Basescu benefitted....For Romania's sake, I hope this issue does not become another scandal.....It has taken all of 2 years for Ponta to get the "come-uppance" he so richly deserves.And for the EC to begin to deserve the Nobel prize it won a couple of years ago

Monday, November 17, 2014

The
Scots have a lot to be proud of – gaining, throughout the centuries, a high reputation for intellectual,
commercial and engineering endeavour – and for honest behaviour. A reputation
that is global from a mix of ambition and evictions which have spilled us to the
far ends of the earth.

And
yet, 2003 saw the publication of a book with the title “The Scots’ Crisis of
Confidence” which suggests that Scots have inhibiting beliefs, attitudes and
general mindset which lead to conformity. Much of the mindset arises
from Scotland's Calvinist past. A sympathetic
review (there were other, angry ones) suggests that these include -

·A
strong tendency to see the world in strict either/or terms, particularly
worthless/damned; good/bad; right/wrong.

·A
tendency to treat a person's mistakes or miscalculations as the result of
deliberate bad faith rather than an error. This means that if anyone makes a
mistake or does something judged to be wrong then they are personally
accountable for it and no excuses or extenuating circumstances are permitted in
defence. It also means that people's motives for action are often viewed as
suspect. This is a viewpoint which leads to cynicism and blame and is one of
the reasons why Scots feel overly fearful of making mistakes.

·An
overriding tendency to believe that criticism (and blame) are helpful and lead
to improvement. This means that appreciation tends to get squeezed out and the
importance of motivation downplayed or forgotten about altogether.

·A
strong injunction to `know your place' and not get above your station. This
exhortation comes from Scotland's egalitarian values but paradoxically, in a
society where people do not set out in life equal all it does is reinforce
class (and gender) inequality.

·A
sense of everyone's fate being bound up with others. This clearly can have
positive aspects but in a critical judgmental climate it can heighten people's
fear of doing anything different for fear of being criticised or cast out. It
also leads to an inadequate sense of privacy and boundaries. In England there
is a prevailing notion of what people choose to do in their own life is their
business (an Englishman's home is his castle) but in Scotland it is common for
people to believe that they may have to account to others for their actions
(e.g. where they live, how they spend money, educate their children etc.) or
even for what they think. This, and the previous points, all contribute to the
common Scots' fear of drawing attention to yourself.

·Scottish
culture is extremely masculine in character. Even the emotional, tender
side of Scottish culture is the preserve of Robert Burns and the Burns cult -
not women. Over the centuries Scottish women's contribution to society at large
has not only been neglected, but also their lives have been particularly
restricted and shaped by tight notions of `respectability'. Since women account
for over fifty per cent of the population this pressure on women to conform has
led to a great restriction on Scottish potential.

·A
strong Utopian tendency in Scottish public life where people commonly believe
that we must all build the New Jerusalem - a perfectly fair, just society where
money does not matter. The contrast with America is that whereas the
American dream is a dream for individuals to create their own life, the
Scottish dream is a dream of collective redemption for Scotland.

But,
in the event, only 45% of the voters chose the independence path. Does this therefore prove the point about lack of confidence?

But in what sense do we (or have we) lack(ed)
self-confidence? Why did so many Scots have it in the 18th and 19th centuries?And when did we/they lose it?Or are the confident Scots all ex-pats?

How might this be measured?

Is the situation static – or
changing?

Assuming we think it’s a bad thing, how might it be changed?

What
sort of measures have been adopted? When? With what support mechanisms?

These
are the questions I have from reading the book…although the book's preface makes it very clear that the author is impatient with demands for proof...

I
spent the 70s and 80s working in the political and administrative heartland of
Scotland – with students, professionals, community activists and
fellow-politicians - and I agree with the author, Carol Craig, that “failure” (and the fear thereof) was a
central reality for an unacceptable number of working class Scottish families.

“Born
to Fail” was indeed the phrase some of us latched onto in 1973 in the run-up to
the first election for the new Strathclyde Region (responsible for most of the
municipal services for half of the Scottish population). It had been the title
of a challenging report from a national Children’s Charity which revealed the
disproportionate number of families in the West of Scotland who suffered from
the multiple handicap (indeed stigma) of unemployment, poor housing, poor
health and poor educational achievement.

My
own experience since 1968 as a reforming councillor had made me angry with the
treatment such people got from local bureaucrats – and had demonstrated how
positively people responded if given the opportunity to engage in self-help
activity and social enterprise…..

The
new Region made a priority of community development from 1976; developed local
participative structures and special programmes which ran for 2 decades and was
then absorbed into the strategy of the new Scottish Government - work which is
well caught in some recent reflections - Supporting
People Power. But, frankly, it made little dent on the malaise – which was
down (in my view) to decisions of global multinationals, governments…..and….
drug barons

And
that’s where I would question Carol’s thesis. It’s a great read – on a par (as
far as historical dissection goes) with Arthur Herman’s (rather more positive) The Scottish
Enlightenment – the Scots invention of the modern world. She’s unearthed
some apt quotations from writers over the centuries – as you would expect of a
doctor of literature- and also gives real food for thought with her comments
about Jung and Positive Psychology; tables which compare Scottish, English and
Irish characteristics; and fascinating comments about how we differ on the deductive/inductive
spectrum.

The
introduction does make the important point that she has moved in her life from
a strongly political perspective to one that tried to bring in the social and
psychological elements. As she puts it on page 24 of the new edition “I simply attempt to add psychological,
behavioural and cultural dimensions thus making for a richer and more complex
picture”. In amplification she suggests that

“the thinker who has contributed most to our understanding of the
dangers of “fragmentation”…is Ken Wilber…who asserts that there are two
important dimensions; interior and exterior and individual and collective.
These then combine to make four quadrants – psychological, behavioural,
cultural and structural”.

But
the author then doesn’t really deal with the 2 “collective” quadrants and
therefore leaves herself open to the sort of attack she gets from radical
sociologists and Marxists. If I had
read the book when it was first published (2003) I might well have complained
that it made no reference to the efforts a lot of us were making in the 70s and
80s to deal with that sense of failure and self-confidence by developing
community structures and social enterprise (not sure which quadrant that’s in).
The
making of an empowering profession is a good record of those endeavours…..

But
the fact remains that social indices in those communities which concerned us
all of 40 years ago are even worse than before……the lack of confidence therefore for me seems to be largely a class thing....although the author does make an important point about the signals returnees and their spouses pick up......Extroverts clam up......perhaps that's a "small-nation" syndrome?

With the benefit of the last 24 years I've had living in other countries,
my main critical comment relates to the lack of comparative (eg European)
references.

How
cultural behaviour is shaped and changes I find increasingly fascinating - “Path
dependency” is the term the academics have used for the grip tradition seems to
have on the way we think and behave in our social and political activities. Its
25 years since the wall fell – but little seems to have changed in the political
mindset of Bulgarians and Romanians – although things are definitely now on the
move in Romania in the judicial system.

When I first worked in Hungary in 1994
I was very struck by what one of my (older) Hungarian team colleagues said –
that their history had taught them to be disappointed in their hopes…..By what
fusion of education, family circumstances and communications does a society
come to develop values of hope, disappointment, fatalism? I would like to see
much more discussion of such issues – and Carol Craig’s book is one of the few
which could help us explore this field

Drive
down to Sofia at the weekend – escaping the last-minute frenzy of the
Presidential Election which, against all odds (not least the brazen corruption
of the so-called social democrats PSD) went to an
ethnic German who has ruled the city of Sibiu very competently for the past
decade.

Political
labels don’t mean anything in Romania – the entire system has been corrupt
until the judicial system started to work a couple of years ago and to jail
scores of politicians…

That
story deserves a wider hearing – but the Iohannis victory should be a further
boost to “normalising” forces in the country although, inevitably, there are
some unsavoury elements in the alliance which supported him.

The
PSD candidate was the present Prime Minister who commands a strong
parliamentary vote. Sadly, therefore, the scene seems set for yet more mutual
aggression – with Iohannis’ disarming personality being one possible saving
grace….

She
is also editor of a new series of short publications called Postcards from
Scotland – one of which (“Letting Go”) challenges the aggressive management
style which has become the norm in the past couple of decades and gives a
couple of great references – a long paper Performance
Management and workplace tyranny produced by a Strathclyde Professor for
the STUC – and a 2009 paper by a group
of American management gurus entitled Moonshots
for Management which takes strong issue with the direction of management.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

It’s
difficult these days to be objective about the European Union – the combination
of the euro crisis, austerity and the immigration set off by the 2004 widening
has given so many easy targets and scapegoats.

“The
European Project” went from strength to strength (with a short breather until
Delors became President in the 1980s) – until hubris set in at the start of the
new millennium. The Euro was launched in 2002 with a great fanfare but, in less
than a decade, has dragged the entire project into disrepute; the attempt to
foist a new Convention on European Nations hit major hurdles very quickly with
French and Dutch rejections of the draft in 2005. All the while, however, the
European Court of Justice has been throbbing quietly in the basement, supplying
the legality if not the legitimacy to the regulations drafted by the Commission
with its supportive infrastructure of lobbyists and officials.

Intellectual
coverage of this unique venture has been massive – with academia queuing up to receive
generous European funding. Did you know, for example, that there were, at
the last count, 409 Jean Monnet Professorial Chairs in European Universities –
funded for the initial 3 years by the EU? Four Hundred and Nine!!

The
natural scepticism of journalists has been kept in place by a combination of EC
press releases; editorial control of newspapers whose owners are (to a man)
pro-European; and by budgets which no longer permit detached scrutiny.

Tom
Gallagher, whom I readily admit to being a friend, is no stranger to
controversy - with a fascination for the undergrowth of political activity not
only in the Balkans (an early specialism) but in the Celtic fringes of Portugal
(1980s) and Scotland (most recently). Romania hardly qualifies in that category
but has been a fruitful harvest for his ruthless probing - initially with Romania
– theft of a nation, latterly with Romania
and the European Union – how the weak vanquished the strong (2010)

Possibly
it was that second book which gave him the idea for this latest book which is very
clearly not another technical study of the eurocrisis - but rather a very
political analysis (with scrupulous references) which carries an unspoken
question about hubris.

His “Europe’s
Path to Crisis” has inspired me to try to identify the more balanced of the
critical writing on Europe - particularly those which can go beyond the critique and have an alternative agenda which might be worth exploring. To reach these (rare) sites, you have to wade
through not only angry nationalist sites but also some which purport to be critical
but which turn out to have European funding!

The
best guide is probably this recent one from Cardiff University. I doubt, however, anyone has a realistic agenda which can satisfy both multinational interests and the frustration of European citizens.....

The recent appointment of Juncker as President of the Commission was hardly calculated to
inspire confidence (not that this has ever seemed a consideration for the
European political class) but recent revelations about the tax evasions which
have been an integral
part of the Luxembourg system over which Juncker presided for so many years
so seem to be the last straw.

My
surfing also threw up this interesting book on The sociology of Europe - and my mail, coincidentally, this New Pact for Europe - produced by a collection of worthy Foundations (including the Bertelsmann and Gulbenkian ones). Great rhetoric - but little reference to the hard economic, ecological and political realities I have been writing about in recent posts (the bibliography kills the report's credibility for me).

Monday, November 10, 2014

Readers
will have noticed a darker tone to the (infrequent) posts of the past few
weeks. This could reflect the time of year - but there is every reason for
people to feel a bit apocalyptic at this point in the 21st Century.

Dave Pollard is a
Canadian of my generation who writes wisely about our epoch – and caught our
social ills well recently with this post about thirteen
trends in social behaviour hesuggests epitomise our times and a slow
collapse in our “civilisation”

Here
are the shifts I am seeing more tangibly that would seem to epitomize early
collapse:

1.Corporations have given up
the pretence of being ethical. At first, a decade or two ago, many corporations
tried to convince the public they were really concerned about social and
environmental issues. Then they discovered that whitewashing, greenwashing, and
lies in their advertising and PR were more effective and cheaper. Now they
don’t even bother to lie. They just say they are forced to do what they do
because their mandate is to maximize profits. Now they settle their malfeasance
out of court because it’s cheaper than obeying the law, and hush it up with gag
orders, whistle-blower prosecutions and threats of costly and protracted
litigation against anyone who dares challenge their illegal activities. Now
they buy their politicians openly. Instead of them serving us, as they were
designed to do, it is now us against them. Now it is illegal for citizens to
film animal cruelty atrocities in factory farms and slaughterhouses, but not
illegal for corporations to commit those atrocities.

2.Politicians have given up the pretence of being representative. Speeches no longer
talk about “the people” or a better society or collective interest, but solely
about response to intangible, invented or inflated dangers like “terrorism” and
“illegal” immigration (but not the real dangers, since that would offend their
owners). Gerrymandering, bribes, voter disenfranchisement and vote-buying are
now accepted as just how the system inevitably works. Political influence and
political decision-making are now totally and overtly a function of the amount
of paid lobbying and money spent. The term “democracy” is now conflated with
“freedom” and Orwellian use of language is openly employed to suppress public
opposition, dissent and outrage.

3.Lying has becoming rampant, overt and even socially acceptable. The biggest and
easiest lies are the lies of omission: burying corporatist and ideological
legislation and pork in “omnibus” bills and “riders”, gross distortions of
measures like unemployment and inflation, burying junk investments in opaque
repackaged and overpriced offerings to the public, activities couched to offer
perpetrators “plausible
deniability“, and unlisted ingredients and unlisted dangers on product
packaging. Another example is lawmakers passing “popular” laws but telling
regulatory staff not to enforce them or “look the other way”, or starving the
regulators of resources. But more egregious is the overt lying, led by the
outrageous (and again Orwellian) untruths of almost all modern advertising and
PR (including political campaign advertising), which we are now forced by every
means possible to watch/listen to/read. And of course, just about everything
done by the legal “profession” who are paid to obfuscate, threaten and lie, and
the mainstream media, who are paid to report only distracting news that does
not offend corporate sponsors, and to oversimplify and distort to pander to
their dumbed-down audience.

4.Widespread use and acceptance of “ends justify the means”
rationalizations. This
is the hallmark behaviour of the Dick Cheneys and other severely
psychologically damaged people who prevail disproportionately in position of
power. Consequentialists rationalize that, immoral as their actions might be
(or might have been), the outcome will be (or was) a desirable one, so their
conduct in achieving it is moot. This argument allows them to decide to wage
wars and commit other acts of violence (and almost all major recent wars and
major acts of violence have been rationalized on this basis). What’s worse,
when the desired “ends” are not achieved (liberation of women in Afghanistan),
the shifting of blame to others for the failure to achieve the ends is used to
excuse both the failure to achieve the ends and for the abhorrence of the
means. Probe just about any act of violence, any lie, or any illegal or immoral
behaviour that someone is justifying or excusing these days, and you’ll find an
“ends (would have) justified the means” rationalization. It’s endemic, and not
only among right-wingers. And few of us have the critical thinking skills to
see its dangers.

5.Human activity (litigation, security, financial “products”
etc.) is focused on defending the status quo rather than producing anything of
value. The
reason most of us could not survive today in the radically decentralized,
low-complexity societies that will take hold after civilization’s collapse, is
that most of us don’t produce anything that peers in our community value, or
ever will value. We are “managers” of useless hierarchies, paper pushers,
systems people, guards, number crunchers, packagers, transporters and vendors
of goods we do not know how to make, with parts we don’t know the origin or
makeup of. Because we intuitively “know” that this is so, we are desperate to
keep civilization’s crumbling systems operating. What else could we do?

6.The illusion of growth has become totally dependent on
increases in oil and in debt. In a presentation here the other day, economist Nate
Hagensrevealed that
since 2000 96% of all US GDP growth has come from more consumption of primary
energy, not from increases in production or efficiency or “innovation”,
and that it now takes creation of $14 of new debt (i.e. printing of
currency) to produce $1 of GDP. So when economists and politicians say they
want a return to growth (to avoid a collapse of the Ponzi scheme stock and
housing markets, among other reasons), what they are really saying is that they
want us to burn more fossil fuels and print more money.

7.Acceptance of obscene inequality. People just shrug
when they learn that the entire increase in global income and wealth since the
1970s has accrued to just 1% of the population — everyone else’s real income
(purchasing power) and wealth has declined (i.e. they’re further into debt), in
many cases precipitously. This is despite the fact that this increase in income
and wealth has come at a ghastly and accelerating social, political and
ecological cost. The Occupy movement tried to challenge this, but the movement
is dormant.

8.Denial of reality, across the political spectrum. Most of us (except in
the US and a few other backward countries) now appreciate that climate change
is caused by burning fossil fuels and is dangerously accelerating. But most of
us still believe, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that it
is somehow possible to change global behaviour so radically that we reverse
emissions and prevent runaway climate change, or that we’re going to somehow
replace most emissions with renewable energy or other “innovations”. Most deny
the reality that our education and health care systems are dysfunctional and
unsustainable, that the Internet is a huge consumer of energy dependent on the
industrial growth economy for its existence, that species extinction has
already accelerated to a point unprecedented in the planet’s history and
threatens the stability of every ecosystem, that our political, economic and
legal systems are so dysfunctional they cannot be salvaged, that industrial
agriculture has already destroyed most of the soils crucial for our survival,
that choosing short-term jobs over long-term economic and ecological health is
disastrous, and that “sustainable growth” is an oxymoron. For those who aren’t
in denial, the ever-growing cognitive dissonance in the media and in public
discourse is staggering.

9.Widespread cynicism and acceptance of conspiracy theories. Stephen Colbert
wrote “Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it.
Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed
blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or
disappoint us.” Cynics are, as George Carlin said, disappointed idealists. The
rampant growth of cynicism reveals a similar increase in fear and
disappointment. Conspiracy theories are popular because they give us someone
else to blame (someone huge, mysterious and unstoppable, hence relieving us of
the obligation to do anything or even to understand what is really happening),
and because they feed our cynicism, and because we all want something simple to
believe instead of the impossible complexity of the truth. And that desire for
something simple to believe also inspires…

10.Search for and willingness to believe in charismatic people
and magical solutions. Hardly
a day goes by when I don’t see another promise of a technology that will
provide infinite, cheap, climate-saving energy. Judging from the number of
views these articles/videos receive, they are magnets for public attention. And
when we’re constantly disappointed by “leaders” to promise us “hope” and
change, it is not surprising that so many fall under the influence of zealous
charismatic people with absurd (and discredited) but miraculous (and simple)
political and economic and technological “solutions” to every problem. The
world’s last powerful charismatic leader, the despotic Mao, killed 80 million
of his country’s citizens while keeping ten times that number in thrall. Notice
the charismatic tilt of many of the new leaders of the fearful
Randian/Thatcherian/Reaganite right, and the leaders of many popular new age
cults.

11.Ubiquitous spying and corporatist surveillance. I don’t think I need
elaborate on this, except to note that the corporate sector’s use of collected
intelligence and surveillance in its many forms dwarfs that of the more obvious
government and military sector. The military-industrial complex is back. So far
it’s too incompetent to figure out how to use the data it’s collecting, but
they’re spending an awful lot of our money working on that. Their level of
anxiety is rising too — they’re tuned into the general dissatisfaction and are
afraid of civil insurrection upsetting their lucrative and high-maintenance
apple-cart. (If only.)

12.Self-colonization and the emergence of “apologism” and
mandatory optimism.
We’ve seen the emergence of mandatory optimism in the corporate world,
and more overtly in the prerequisite for being a TED talker and
other “positive thinking” movements. But now the vilification of criticism and
pessimism (as distinct from cynicism) is becoming more ubiquitous. Critical
thinking and doubt are dismissed out-of-hand as negativity and a “bad attitude”
even in peer conversation. When internalized to the point we feel bad about
feeling bad, it’s an essential tool of self-colonization — the co-opting and
self-censoring of our own anger, skepticism, fear, sadness, grief, and
‘unpopular’ beliefs in order to be socially accepted by others, and in some
cases to brainwash ourselves into denial of our own feelings and beliefs that
we are struggling to cope with — and reconcile with what others are saying they
feel and believe (there’s that cognitive dissonance again: “If I’m the only one
thinking this, I must be crazy, so I’d better not talk about it”). What all
this produces is something now called “apologism” — a propensity to make
excuses and minimize an event or belief or feeling because you don’t want to
seem “always” critical or out of step with the mainstream or peers. In its
worst form it emerges as a victim-blaming defence for atrocities like assault,
harassment or abuse. But in its milder form it can lead to dangerous
group-think, the suppression of new and important ideas, and destructive
self-blaming.

13.Widespread anomie and the trivialization and co-opting of
dissent by professional activists. The term anomie means a disconnection between
ones personal values and one’s community’s values. It refers to a state of
‘rudderlessness’ where it is difficult to find one’s authentic place or engage
in meaningful social interaction with most others, especially those in
different demographics. In a major international study, pollster Michael Adams
found it increasingly
prevalent in young people, and on the rise in all age groups. Adams
remarked on how Americans in particular were becoming increasingly “suspicious
of and indifferent to the plight of their fellow citizens”. The disengagement
of the young explains why so many activist groups are dominated by older people
(a new phenomenon in the last half-century). Unfortunately, the activist vacuum
has allowed professional environmental groups (Greenpeace, 350 etc.) to co-opt
much of the activist movement’s activities, creating a constant manageable
“trivial theatre of dissent” that is comfortable for many older people opposed
to violence and confrontation, and comfortable for the corporations and
politicians because it’s controlled and unthreatening. Mainstream media like it
because it’s simplified, dichotomous and often specifically orchestrated for
their cameras. And it creates easy, stable, well-paying jobs for mainstream
environmental group spokespeople, while changing absolutely nothing.

While
I believe most of these trends and emergences are complex collective responses
to changing realities, and either well-intentioned or unconscious (i.e. without
malicious intent), taken together they would seem to evince a broad, intuitive
shift in our collective gestalt, our way of coping with the world. They
reveal more than anything, I think, a giving up of the belief in fairness,
justice, controllability, understandability and consensus as means of “making
sense” or taking action reliably to achieve desired objectives in the current
reality of how things work. They reveal both the incapacity of our now
massively-overgrown, fragile and unwieldy systems to function sustainably or
effectively, and the incapacity of ourselves and our broken communities to
function effectively within their purview.

Pollard's analysis fits my own. Its implication is that we should renounce reform efforts - and focus on individual and community efforts. But where does that leave those who are still governed by idealism?

About Me

Can be contacted at bakuron2003@yahoo.co.uk
Political refugee from Thatcher's Britain (or rather Scotland) who has been on the move since 1991. First in central Europe - then from 1999 Central Asia and Caucasus. Working on EU projects - related to building capacity of local and central government. Home base is an old house in the Carpathian mountains and Sofia

about the blog

Writing in my field is done by academics - and gives little help to individuals who are struggling to survive in or change public bureaucracies. Or else it is propoganda drafted by consultants and officials trying to talk up their reforms. And most of it covers work at a national level - whereas most of the worthwhile effort is at a more local level. The restless search for the new dishonours the work we have done in the past. As Zeldin once said - "To have a new vision of the future it is first necessary to have new vision of the past".I therefore started this blog to try to make sense of the organisational endeavours I've been involved in; to see if there are any lessons which can be passed on; to restore a bit of institutional memory and social history - particularly in the endeavour of what used to be known as "social justice". My generation believed that political activity could improve things - that belief is now dead and that cynicism threatens civilisationI also read a lot and wanted to pass on the results of this to those who have neither the time or inclination -as well as my love of painting, particularly the realist 20th century schools of Bulgaria and Belgium.A final motive for the blog is more complicated - and has to do with life and family. Why are we here? What have we done with our life? What is important to us? Not just professional knowledge - but what used to be known, rather sexistically, as "wine, women and song" - for me now in the autumn of my life as wine, books and art....

quotes

“I will act as if what I do makes a difference”
William James 1890.

"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas"
JM Keynes (1935)

"We've spent half a century arguing over management methods. If there are solutions to our confusions over government, they lie in democratic not management processes"
JR Saul (1992)

"There are four sorts of worthwhile learning - learning about · oneself
· learning about things
· learning how others see us
· learning how we see others"
E. Schumacher (author of "Small is Beautiful" (1973) and Guide for the Perplexed (1977))

"The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."
Bertrand Russell, 1950

Followers

der arme Dichter (Carl Spitzweg)

my alter ego

the other site

In 2008 I set up a website in the (vain) hope of developing a dialogue around issues of public administration reform - particularly in transition countries where I have been living and working for the past 26 years. The site is www.freewebs.com/publicadminreform and contains the major papers I have written over the years about my attempts to reform various public organisations in the various roles which I've had - politician; academic/trainer; consultant.